


Of Clean Corners and Tucked Edges

by clairedearing



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Ten Times plus One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:17:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairedearing/pseuds/clairedearing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His professor once came up to him and spent twenty minutes trying to convince him that he'd be suited to a job in mathematics, maybe even accounting, like his sister. [Ten moments where things never really worked out, and one where it did. In a pre-universe where Q is Vesper's younger brother.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Clean Corners and Tucked Edges

**Author's Note:**

> This is me, playing around with this universe. Technically this is AU for it?? Because I plan to write something more in depth after I watch Skyfall? So, this is like a prototype. Anyway. Yeah.

i.  
  
He doesn't graduate top of his class. That spot is reserved for people who show up everyday and bother turning in assignments. Instead, he flies by on his tests, only coming to class when there's something new to learn.  
  
Vesper calls to scold him at least once a week, but Vesper's always been tucked edges, and straight lines, and clean corners. She never missed a class, or a decimal. Always had her plans written down in her planner, neat and orderly. It's why the Royal Treasury hired her straight out of University. But, no matter how much she reprimands and urges, it's never quite enough.  
  
She doesn't ever understand that no matter how much she wants him to follow in her footsteps, he doesn't want to become her, and so it's a lost cause.  
  
(Sometimes, he thinks they were close, as tight as a brother and sister could be, but then he stops lying to himself and knows they never truly were. It'll always be Vesper's disappointed voice, and his flat replies.)  
  
ii.  
  
It's not that he's special from everyone. It's that he can think on his feet, and move just as fast, and when a problem presents itself, he fixes it.  
  
He graduates with a degree in computer science because he's not sure there's a major out there for 'can break into any computer in the world in thirteen minutes or less'. It could have been engineering, because he's good at schematics, nearly as good as he is at chemistry, and physics, and every other type of science out there.  
  
If there was a degree in 'information', that'd be what he would have graduated with. But, there isn't. (There are a few jobs, however.)  
  
iii.  
  
Vesper shows up to kiss him on the cheek, to gush how proud she is of him for all sorts of things really. Starting with getting a job with the government. Like her. She buys him new glasses, with a thick black rim, and kisses him on the cheek again for whatever reason she can think of, and gifts him a new planner, nearly identical to the one she has - the one she's constantly burying her nose in, making notes and revisions.  
  
It's hard to admit but he loves seeing her happy. It doesn't matter if they don't talk for weeks on end, and it doesn't matter that they're not close. She's his sister.  
  
(He mocks her about being an accountant, and staying in the office, and she shoves him and tells him about a very real job that's been assigned to her where she gets to go to Montenegro and pretend to be undercover. She won't tell him anything more about it, but he thinks her smile is a bit brittle, and she shakes just barely in his arms.  
  
'It's all very white and black,' she says, later, when the sun's gone down and they're listening to some old program on the radio. 'All very white and black.')  
  
iv.  
  
He deals with the news of Vesper's death the way she'd want him to.  
  
There's wills to cover and expenses to pay off. He finds his way into her apartment and boxes away the things she'd want him to keep and the things she'd find unnecessary.  
  
There's pictures littering her walls, of her, and of him, and of a man he doesn't know, but apparently who was very close with Vesper.  
  
He spends more time than he should packing those away, and finds himself bringing the ones of her home, only discarding the photos of only him and the man. He packs them away in storage, and continues life as if it never happened.  
  
It doesn't go that way, though.  
  
v.  
  
It curdles around him one night, thick and heavy until he can't breathe. It's anger, and rage, and the overwhelming feeling of loss. He's never felt it, not when his parents died, or when Vesper moved out early and barely kept in touch. It effects him, and it's maddening.  
  
When it coils around him to the point he can't breathe, he types. He types programs and algorithms and finds himself deep into the government's territory, sifting through file after file of anything that mentions the words 'Vesper', 'Lynd', and 'Drowning in Venice'.  
  
There are words like 'Quantum' and 'Bond' and 'LaChiffre' that he doesn't understand until he reads and reads and reads and does.  
  
He gets sloppy he supposes because there's a knock at his door next morning, and he also supposes he's arrested, but rather he gets questioned about his motives and his sister, and then he ends up with a job. (Apparently it's impossible to even break into the mainframe, much less go undetected for twelve hours.)  
  
No-one ever presumed to know how the British Intelligence worked anyhow.  
  
vi.  
  
Bond is everything he was expecting and more. Cool, and confident, and willing to break all the rules to get the job done.  
  
Part of him wonders if they're alike.  
  
But the other part finds himself using clean corners and tucked edges, and sometimes he finds himself doing a remarkably Vesper like action that makes him stop and do it all over again because he's not sure if he can live with his own body betraying him like that.  
  
Bond doesn't know that he's Vesper's brother, and he never feels the urge to tell him.  
  
vii.  
  
Vesper is kept alive in the way he wakes up and makes his coffee, and tucks his bed sheets in, and dots every i, and crosses every t. Vesper is kept alive in the photos he hangs on his wall, smiles vibrant and cheerful. Vesper is kept alive in the smile that he gives Bond everyday, secretive and knowing, and if Bond sometimes has to give a double take, then that's alright.  
  
Vesper is kept alive in Bond's breath in his ear, slightly static-filled from the earpiece, ignoring his sharp directions and shooting back dry remarks instead.  
  
Vesper is kept alive in the way his heart beats a little faster when Bond does something reckless, and just manages to make it work, and only gives a smile in response.  
  
He keeps Vesper alive, and Bond a bit sane, and everything held together.  
  
(He keeps Vesper alive by keeping Bond alive.)  
  
viii.  
  
They kiss.  
  
Maybe Bond kisses him, or he kisses Bond, though the latter seems out of character for him, but one moment they're not, and then they are. It's not pressing, or fast, or desperate. It's slow - the kind that seems like it's gone on for hours when it's only been seconds, where Bond's lips are soft and slightly chapped, and his hands hold a little too tightly, and he looses his breath a little too fast.  
  
He pushes Bond away, gently, firmly, hands tense on Bond's shoulder. It's not rational, doing something like this. There are too many commitments, and lies, and secrets.  
  
Mostly, he thinks he's following too close in Vesper's foot steps.  
  
Even if the look on Bond's face is no longer open and warm, but closed and cool.  
  
(It's better than being pulled away.)  
  
ix.  
  
He goes through Vesper's pictures until he finds the one he wants, of her smiling openly at the camera, freckles still visible on her face. It's an open mouth grin, where it portrays nothing but happiness. He holds it in his hands until he can breathe again, calm and steady, and places it by his bedside.  
  
He packs away every picture of her he has, methodically stacking them in a cardboard box and slipping them into the top shelf of his closet. It feels less like home and more of a place of residence when he does; the walls seem too gray and barren, and it's too empty.  
  
M knows who he is, or was, or used to be before he showed up on her radar. He's not going to quit, he says, and watches as her eyebrow raises. He just wants a chance to explain.  
  
Explain to whom? is what M asks, but he already knows she knows the answer to that question.  
  
x.  
  
It only takes him twenty minutes to triangulate Bond's location via his cell phone, and another ten to convince him to have lunch with him. He chooses a small, out of the way cafe, and before Bond can even thank the waitress for his black coffee, he starts.  
  
He explains it from the very beginning, how two young children once lost their parents, and how the older sister worked her way through college, and then did the same for him. He talks mildly about how despite all that they were never really close; how they only kept in contact every few weeks.  
  
There's a few stories he wants to throw in but refrains because he doesn't think Bond's quite ready for that yet, and he talks about how the sister was so proud her brother managed to get a job, and how he mocked her about her own, and how she teased that she was doing something very big in Montenegro.  
  
That's where Bond understands, and the confusion fades from his face into something he can't quite identify.  
  
So, he talks a bit more about how even though the two siblings were never close, it was still awful to be alone without her, and how the brother did something reckless, and was noticed by a group of very important people, and how he met the man that was there when his sister died.  
  
He looks at Bond then, and casually remarks how the brother never blamed the man for the death of his sister though he knew the man lost sleep at night over it.  
  
He never feels any strong emotions over the story except maybe wistfulness, and Bond looks at him like he's torn between wanting to run away, and wanting to shake him for more information.  
  
'Q,' Bond says, voice somewhere between hushed and firm.  
  
'007,' Q says, and smiles.  
  
\+ i.  
  
His professor once came up to him and spent twenty minutes trying to convince him that he'd be suited to a job in mathematics, maybe even accounting, like his sister.  
  
Perhaps it was the hatred of accounting, but he knows it was the mention of being like his sister. He never wanted to be like her, though the universe seemed to constantly be pushing him towards that. He understood numbers, and noticed the details that no-one would ever notice.  
  
Maybe, if he had listened, and complied, and did what Vesper loved to do, somehow she would still be here, calling him every week to scold him on the phone for not showing up to work on time, and he would have never crossed his t's and dotted his i's.  
  
Maybe things would have been different, but there's still every chance that they wouldn't have been, and he's never been someone to leave anything up to chance.  
  
He thinks Vesper would have been proud of him for finding a good job with good people. A job where everything he had to offer would be accepted.  
  
He thinks Vesper would have been happy, and would tease him about the smiles he shares with Bond, and the not-quite-there touches that slowly amount to something better.  
  
He thinks, ultimately, if Vesper were here, he would hug her close, and kiss her on the cheek, and tell her that he's sorry for giving her such a difficult time, and that she doesn't have to worry because he's got Bond, and he's going to make sure he doesn't get lost, not again.  
  
He thinks Vesper would have smiled, and said 'you better,' and 'I love you too'.  
  
(He thinks a lot of things, but he thinks he would have been just a bit happier, and a bit messier.)  
  
  



End file.
